


Grace Under Fire

by comealongpixie



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bisexual Female Character, Bisexual Male Character, F/F, F/M, Hunting culture, M/M, Multi, Original Character-centric, Other, Polyamory, Present Tense, Queer Themes, Queerplatonic Relationships, Sex Worker Dean (Implied), Winchester Sister, angel lore, original cases
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-04
Updated: 2014-10-04
Packaged: 2018-02-19 19:56:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2400983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/comealongpixie/pseuds/comealongpixie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[This story is abandoned, I'm rewriting it and will post a new entry but don't expect updates i am sorry]</p>
<p>Ever since her unexpected survival of the nursery fire and early birth, Grace Winchester has felt smothered by her overprotective father and alienated from her brothers Sam and Dean. When John goes missing, her brothers do their best to keep Grace safely away from the search for him, but fate has other plans. Plans that will-for better or worse-change their family, and the world, forever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Grace Under Fire

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone! If you follow me over on tumblr at [ sisficionado ](sisficionado.tumblr.com) then you know that I love sisfics, and that I’ve been planning this story for some time. Now it’s finally time to publish and I’m super excited! Grace is a character I’ve had in various rps for over a year and she’s very close to my heart. I’m going to start with a few notes for readers who like to look before they leap, but I promise later chapters won’t have this long commentary. 
> 
> The story starts just before the pilot, and I’ll become apparent early on that the story is canon divergent. Don’t worry, the apocalypse plotline and everything leading up to it is in tact; things just unfold a little differently, with a few extra elements. The story includes a lot of original cases and lore. In particular it expands on the hunting community as a culture and on the history behind the angels and Heaven. It also includes a number of OCs, but is mostly centered on the characters mentioned in the...summary thingie up there. 
> 
> I’d also like to note that although I have a good chunk of this story concretely plotted out, I have a lot of ideas as to where it could eventually go, certain subplots I’m not 100% sure I’m going to use, etc. I'll update the tags as necessary, but I also don't want to tag things that aren't relevant to people checking the tag. (Example, ships that are only implied or short-lived). If you want a full list of ships or characters, you can go to [ gracecamilla ](gracecamilla.tumblr.com) on tumblr and find them, as well as pictures of Grace's faceclaim (Emilie de Ravin), manips, playlists, meta, spoilers, and me laughing at my own jokes. 
> 
> Anyway, if you have the time, please review-I’ve poured my heart and soul into this story and these characters and I’d love to hear what you think! 
> 
> Lastly, I’d like to thank a couple people without whom this story would never be possible. My best bitches Brittany and Maddi have been incredible, serving as everything from muses to sounding boards to voices of reason-even letting me borrow their OCs and co-writing certain scenes with me. Their support and motivation is invaluable. They keep me sane and they laugh at my jokes. 
> 
> I’d also like to thank all the lovelies over at sisficionado for enabling my obsession and making the world brighter with every Winchester sister OC that is created. You guys are awesome. In particular, I’d like to thank [ Erin ](epp-characters.tumblr.com) and [ Christine ](prettypanda117.tumblr.com)-the authors of my two favorite sisfics, Where the Wayward Tread and and Carry On, respectively. Your enthusiasm and dedication is truly inspiring. 
> 
> And now, finally, onto the story!
> 
> **EDIT:** Story has been changed to present tense, excepting the prologue. The original, past tense version of chapter one can be found on the Grace Winchester blog; all further chapters will be in present tense.

#  Grace Under Fire 

##  Prologue 

###  Lawrence Memorial Hospital. May 3rd, 1983. 1:106 AM. 

John Winchester ran a hand down his face and glanced over at his children. They were asleep, both of them, tangled up in the chair next to him, with Sam on Dean’s lap. John had tried to take Sam from his oldest son, but Dean had insisted, clinging to his brother, and Sam seemed content with this.

Even now, Sam was sleeping like a rock. Yesterday had been his birthday, and he was still wearing the frosting from his cake. Dean’s rest was less peaceful-even curled up with his head on the arm of the chair, he seemed ready to jump up at any moment. John could relate. It’s how he’d slept most nights since he’d gotten back from Vietnam. His stomach turned at the thought of his boy as a veteran. 

But kids were resilient in a way adults weren’t. Dean would be okay. Sammy would be okay. He tried to tell convince himself, over and over. Trying not to think about fire and blood and the fact that Mary, his Mary, was _gone gone gone._ Trying not to think about the fact that there was no possible way their daughter could have survived the fire when Mary didn’t. That at any moment, a doctor would come out, apologize for his loss, and he wouldn’t be surprised but it would still be another knife twisting in his gut. 

For as long as he’d been here-and he was not sure how long it had been-a doctor had come out every so often, telling him that his daughter was struggling, but not hopeless. She’s a fighter, they told him. There’s a chance. 

But John knew from personal experience that a fighting spirit was no guarantee of survival. 

John was no fool. In his mind, he knew that his daughter would never survive. There was just no way. No way she could survive her mother’s charred remains-three months before the due date, no less. 

And yet. 

Deep in his heart, he couldn’t help but hold onto the hope that maybe, just maybe, she’d survive. The medical staff certainly seemed to think there was a chance, otherwise he wouldn’t still be here. As for John himself, maybe he just needed something to hold onto, some light in what was the darkest night of his life, because trying to let go of that hope was like trying to to pull teeth. 

“Mr. Winchester?”

John looked up abruptly. In front of him was a tall, dark-skinned woman in scrubs, looking as exhausted as he felt. 

“I’m Dr. Alderman. I’m the head surgeon here.”

“Look, I-”

“Your daughter is alive.” She seemed to pick up on the helplessness in his eyes, because she refused to let him finish. “She’s...fragile. Her lungs weren’t fully formed. We didn’t think she’d make it, but she just wouldn’t give up. She’s stable now. You can see her if you like.”

John blinked up at her the way one blinks at the sun in the morning, when it feels like it was so dark just moments ago. It took what felt like a long time for her words to sink in. Then he looked over at his sons. 

“We can have a nurse look after them,” the doctor assured him. 

He nodded. Stood up slowly. Refused to leave the room until he saw with his own eyes that his children were being looked after, and even then he was reluctant to leave. Then he followed the surgeon down a series of hallways, and it felt like hours and seconds all at once before he was standing behind a glass screen, staring at his daughter. 

She was the tiniest baby he’d ever seen, covered in a strange coat of thin blonde hair. She was lying on her stomach in an incubator, with tubes hooked up to her. Her thumbs were in her mouth, and she looked to be asleep. 

It was a strange feeling, twisted and bittersweet. This was his baby, his daughter. Any joy he felt came along with guilt, and that guilt came with more guilt-as if his baby girl deserved his affection, and Mary deserved his devastation, and he should only be able to feel one at a time. 

He stared helplessly, feeling very lost. Mary should be here. 

A moment later, a clipboard was pushed into his hands. A birth certificate was held in place by the metal clip, and a pen was attached to the top. 

And every disagreement over names that had taken place between John and his wife seemed so very inconsequential now. There was no question. He didn’t even hesitate before scribbling out the name that Mary had wanted.

_Grace Camilla Winchester._

##  Chapter One 

###  21 Years Later. Jericho, California. 

_"OPEN UP MY EAGER EYES CAUSE I’M MISTER BRIGHTSIDE."_

The window of her truck is open, whipping her already perpetually messy hair every which way. Her shirt says Led Zeppelin-a birthday gift from Dean, several years old-but the car radio is set on a station dedicated to more recent hits, and the wind isn’t loud enough to mask Grace singing along, very much off-key. 

She appreciates the sentiment of the shirt, anyway. She’s wearing it, after all. And she likes Zeppelin, if more out of nostalgia than personal taste. Dean teases her when she listens to anything outside of his definition of quote-unquote “real music” around him. So she doesn’t. 

But Dean isn’t here now. It’s just her. She’s coming from an interview with a man whose wife committed suicide, an interview that confirmed her father’s suspicions about the nature of the spirit they’re hunting. And now, driving back to the motel, she allows herself a moment of freedom. Because these drives keep her sane. As much as Grace adores her father, he can be smothering at times. Most of the time. Almost all of the time. And her brothers, when they’re around-well, they’re no better. 

The music comes to an abrupt stop as Grace cuts the engine. The sole decoration in her car, some symbol meant to protect against the evil eye that hangs from the rearview mirror, bounces around at the sudden stop. She reaches up, grabbing it to stop it from swinging, and then hops out of the car and pockets her hands, heading for the motel room.

Despite the slowly dwindling sunlight outside, it’s dim inside the musty room, the blinds pulled shut tight, and when she steps inside, light is cast from the door across one of the beds, the one on which her father is sitting. He’s staring at a closed manila folder, frowning, thoughtful. He looks intense, which is not unusual for him, but she doesn’t like it all the same. 

“Daddy?” she asks cautiously. Her father tends to do this, to get lost deep in thought, and sometimes when he does, he doesn’t like being interrupted. He has always tried not to show it, but she’s always known. She asks for his attention, and he turns to her and asks “Yes, Grace?” and his irritation is always clear-clear in his tone, in his eyes, in the way he addresses her sans nickname. And Grace just says “Nevermind,” and slinks off out of the way, unsure of when he’ll come out of his head again. 

This time, though, he looks up and smiles. “Hey, Pumpkin.” He looks tired, more tired than usual, but there’s something in his eyes, something that feels vaguely familiar, but she can’t quite place it. 

She pushes her curiosity away reluctantly and returns her focus to the matter at hand. “You were right,” she says. “The guy cheated on his wife.”

John just nods. “Good job, Gracie.” She beams at the compliment and nods in thanks. Then she points to the folder in his hands. 

“Is that new stuff on Constance?”

He shakes his head. “Just some stuff I’m looking into.” She knows better than to push for more information, so she just nods. “Listen,” he says. “Dean called. He’s over in New Orleans-”

“I know where he is,” she interrupts, sounding mildly offended-

“-And he said he needed some back-up. I told him you’d be there asap.”

Grace blinks. John never sends Grace on hunts without him. Never. Not that she’s never hunted without him, but it’s always been without his knowledge, let alone his blessing. He’s always been so adverse to the idea, but now…

She nods quickly, grinning again despite herself. “Yes, Sir.” She rarely calls her father “sir,” but the word slips out and she doesn’t bother to pull it back. “I’ll get packed.”

“Good girl.”

In her nervous enthusiasm, it takes her longer than usual to get packed, but in fifteen minutes she’s throwing her duffle into the backseat of her truck. 

John seems to hug her a little longer before she leaves. 

She will regret not asking why.

###  Two Days Later. New Orleans, Louisiana. 

She knocks three times on Dean’s motel door. She has a key-swiped it from the front desk, but boys are gross and she knows better than to walk in on one unannounced. 

It’s a long moment after knocking before she registers the nature of the sounds coming from Dean’s room. She considers going back to her car-there’s a mattress under the camper shell, thin and uncomfortable as it is-before deciding against it. In her sleep-deprived state, it seems very obvious that this is intentional. 

It had occurred to her more than once during the drive that when Dean asked for back up, he hadn’t been expecting John to send her, and probably hadn’t been thrilled at the arrangement. Dean doesn’t see his sister as being any more capable than their father does-maybe even less so. This kind of microagression is exactly up Dean’s alley, and ordinarily she might let it go, but the drive had been long and unkind and fuck, she’s tired. 

She knocks again, harder this time, and tries to sound distressed. “DEAN! HELP!” The sounds stop, and then she hears voices, too faint to make out through the motel walls, and some banging sounds-the kind made by hard footsteps on thin flooring. Then the door opens, and Dean is there-shirtless, disheveled, looking worried and irritated all at once, which is kind of how he always looks when Grace is involved. 

“What happened? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” Grace absently glances behind him, into the room, and sees a redheaded woman tugging her clothes on. She turns her attention back to Dean quickly. “But it’s nice to have your attention.”

Dean’s expression turns sour, but before he can say anything, the redhead-now fully clothed-pushes past the two of them. Grace turns back a little to watch her. The woman turns around, waving a wad of cash pointedly with one hand and flipping Dean off with the other. 

Then she gets in her car and drives away. 

Dean groans and turns back to Grace. “You’re bad for business, you know that?” 

Grace doesn’t answer. “You gonna let me in?”

“She says, as if I have a choice,” Dean mutters, but he steps aside to let her in anyway. Grace rolls her eyes as her brother tugs his shirt on. The sheets on the bed, the only bed in the room, are still messy, so Grace leans against the door, crossing her arms. 

“Wow. You’re welcome, by the way, for driving two days straight because you can’t handle some voodoo shit on your own.”

“Watch your language,” he says, more out of habit than anything. “And I didn’t ask you to come. In fact, why _did_ you come?”

Grace opens her mouth to protest, but stops before she can form words. She’s been set up, she realizes. They both have. She feels the color drain from her face. _What could be so bad that Dad would lie to get me out of the way?_

“Grace?” Dean sounds worried again. 

“...Dad said you asked for back-up.”

Dean stares. Then something clicks, and at once, they both lunge for the side table on which Dean’s phone is sitting. Dean gets to it first and checks his messages while his sister stands on tip-toe beside him, trying to see the phone. 

The most recent message is from their father. He hits play. 

_“Dean...something big is starting to...I need to try and figure out what’s going on.”_ The message is staticky and broken. _“It may...be very careful, Dean. Watch out for Gr....we’re all in danger.”_

And then it ends.

“That was yesterday,” Dean says, after a moment of silence. He turns to Grace. “When’d you last hear from him?”

“Not since I left a couple days ago. I called him from the road, but he didn’t pick up.” Pale and wide-eyed, she’s regretting not asking more question before she left. She knows John wouldn’t have answered them, he never does, but...maybe he would have, this time. If she had asked. But she hadn’t.

Dean swears profusely and runs a hand down his face. 

“Play the message again,” Grace says after a moment. He does. 

_“Dean...something big is starting to...I need to try and-”_

Grace grabs her brother’s arm more tightly than necessary. “There. You hear that?”

“Yeah. EVP.”

“I’ll get my laptop.”

When she steps outside, she expects to feel a cool burst of night air, something to clear her head, but the night is just as hot as the day here in New Orleans, and she’s left with her thoughts, messy and clouded. She puts herself on autopilot as she grabs her laptop. Reassures herself that everything will be fine, lays out a clear prediction as to what will happen, starting with hearing the EVP and ending with finding their father, alive, in a couple of days. She allows her emotions to flow through these channels, and only these channels, kept in check by faith. Faith is all she has. 

Faith is all she’s ever had, really. 

She comes inside, hooks Dean’s phone up to the computer, and sets both on the table. For once, Dean steps back and lets her work. Sam had taught her everything she knows about computers before leaving for Stanford, and although she’s not as proficient as he is, she works well with computers. They’re easy, once you know how to talk to them. Unlike people. 

Sometimes she wonders if people are just messy and always will be, or if there’s just some language barrier that she has yet to cross. 

Sure enough, the EVP tracker presents her with audio a minute later. 

_“I can never...go...home…”_

“Never go home,” Dean repeats, arms crossed, frowning in thought. He’s bent over, leaning over her shoulder, watching the screen. 

“He was hunting a woman in white,” Grace supplies. 

“I mean, yeah, I knew that.” Dean straightens up, pacing a little. “But why’d he send you away?”

“And why’d he lie about it?” This isn’t the first time John’s sent Grace away when a hunt got too dangerous. But he’s never done so without telling her why, and never over something like this. Women in White are basic. “...Dad’s in trouble, isn’t he?”

“Looks like.”

“Call him. Maybe he’ll pick up.”

Dean doesn’t look any more confident than Grace feels, but he calls anyway. She can hear their father’s voicemail play through the speaker. 

“Nada.” Dean hangs up the phone and slips it into his pocket. 

“So now what?” _Dean will know what to do. He always does._

“Well, now we head over to where he was last. Swing by Stanford on the way.” He starts packing, tossing his things into a familiar duffle bag. “I’ll take first shift packing-no offense, sis, but you look like Hell.” He half-smiles at her, trying to look more confident than he feels. 

“What about my-wait, Stanford? You wanna bring Sam into this?”

“Well, yeah, I mean, it’s his dad too that’s missing.”

_Missing._ It’s hard to hear out loud. 

“I just-are you sure he’ll wanna help?”

Dean zips his duffle bag shut and slings it over his shoulder. “Yeah. I’m sure.” But he doesn’t sound or look as sure as he wants to be. 

She decides not to question it for now. 

**Author's Note:**

> _But what about Grace's car?_


End file.
